Author's Notes for Comma Comma · 7:34pm Mar 15th, 2017
AN ADMISSION
As I wait for this story to post, I wonder how many downvotes it'll get. Probably several.
I'm sure many of you who read this story and clicked to this blogpost might be wondering, "What the hell happened? I thought Soufriere was at least a decent writer!" To new readers, you have my sincere apology. As you can see from the previous sentences, as well as this one, I do know how to properly use a comma. I had my reasons for this. Follow me past the jump for more actually correct grammar.
This story is an experiment. Many of my stories are in one way or another, but this one especially. I wanted to try and create an intentionally bad fanfic. However, I think I ended up putting in too much effort, as the story was still coherent, at least until I gave up at the end. Trollfic? I don't know if I'd go that far. It's never my intent to make people angry; I just wanted to have a little fun and poke fun at people who fail at basic grammar rules.
After reading far too many badfics, I thought to myself, "What if a writer like myself whose stories regularly get a high percentage of upvotes wrote a story that contained no commas whatsoever? But instead of just doing that, why not have an in-story reason for it and make the whole thing a bit of meta insanity?" Yup, that was my thought process. Hey, I never said I was sane.
My regular readers know what I'm capable of on the writing front, so they know my next story will be back to business as usual, with properly placed commas and semicolons and a lack of 4th-wall/meta humour.
Anyway. I hope you enjoyed the absurdity. I'm sorry. And, as always, I'll see y'all next time. Peace out!
4457381 - So what would you call this abomination, this intentional butchering of the English language?
4457390
A crack fic, basically something absurd but at the same time having it's own internal logic. It's one that is written with the intention of being weird as heck, but has actual effort put into it, having it's own flow. A bad fic would lack anything of substance and have no flow or spelling and grammar. A badfic is a parody of those, usually having the same bad grammar and pacing, but managing to get something out of it, like meta humor poking fun at bad fic tropes or having one good element that overshadows everything else. At least, that's my understanding of it.
I just hope you can get Spike to sign off on the next story where you need him. Little guy can get tetchy when crossed.
4457429 - I know, right? I didn't realize he hated my stories with him and the mayor so much. Or maybe it was because I threw the little guy into a Youtube Poop without warning. Either way, the upcoming contract renegotiation may be more fraught than I expected.
Pretty sure Dan Mandel hates commas (of 'Dan vs' fame) is that your inspiration?
4457479
No. Much as I loved Dan Vs., the inspiration for this story is an actual writer on this site who is infamous for never using commas. I won't reveal their handle because I wrote this story without permission and I don't want to get in trouble with the admins. I think Estee and a couple other commenters figured it out though.
Technically, I should have been banned long ago for all the song references I put in my stories.
As an editor, this practically burned my eyes. It was still amusing, though.
Upvote.
I'm new to your work, so I don't know what other mistakes you may potentially make, but I have one note for you:
'-ly' words don't use a hyphen after them. Example:
There's no hyphen after 'properly.' It's just one of those things I've picked up over the years, and now sticks out to me.
By the way, I love the 'Canterlot Academy' reference to the Oxford comma. I'm a huge advocate of its use. Have you seen the "...hookers, Stalin and Hitler" one?
Okay, time to go look at your other stories.
I arrived when dispatched by Estee; as someone who, in all probabilty, way-over uses the comma, the semi-colon (plus parenthese) - and hyphens, come to that - ellipses too... the thought of not being able to splice my habitually long-winded, rambling, barely-coherent, sentences fills me with with a sort of exenstential dread; the likes of which I would find it entirely impossible to elucidate, at least not without resorting to my usual, adjective-filled, over-loquacious and often aphroism-filled veribage.
Damn, that felt better.
4457948
Then I accomplished what I set out to do.
And yes, I'm very aware of that object lesson, comic included. The line about foals, Spike, and Big Mac is a direct homage to it.
I'll take your words about no hyphen after -ly words into consideration. I wasn't aware of any hard-&-fast rules about hyphen usage – my degree is in Public Admin., not English/Lit. – so I generally do what "looks" or "feels" right depending on the situation.
I rarely write crackfics; this is only my second one. The vast majority of my work consists of one-shots about mental breakdown wherein I actually care about grammar, characterization, and logical story progression. You'll probably find things to nitpick; none of us are perfect. One thing I'll cop to is that I always capitalize race names (Unicorn), and I can be inconsistent between stories on "Earthpony" vs. "Earth-pony" (I prefer the latter; I dislike writing the term as two separate words, so I don't).
4457979 - Why do I get the feeling I'm likely one of just a few dozen people on this site who could actually understand every single word you wrote there?
4458177
It is bad that I wasn't even really trying...?
4457816 Whelp he's gone now, toddling off with a toddy of rum to go sulk in a corner.
>> Aotrs Commander
I'm one of the understand-ees, Certainly filled the 20 cent jar of long words with that as well.
4457979
I know it's kinda petty to bother you about a blog comment from almost a week ago, but...
You made a lot of spelling errors.
4465074
I try to avoid them where possible, but sadly, sometimes a late hour (like small hours of the morning) when I post and lack of a spellcheck feature (and the subsequent "have to check via google") gets the better of me.